“Bad Girls” Recaps: Episode 2.04 “Looking for Love”

The dullards: Josh and Crystal put everyone to sleep.The dissembler: Fenner can’t fool anybody, but that won’t stop him from trying.The deranged: Shell starts to go off the rails.

An unwelcome sight — Sylvia Hollamby is back at work after being shoved down the stairs in the last episode. She doesn’t seem much the worse for wear, but she is wearing a please-feel-sorry-for-me neck brace. She recites her miseries to her co-workers. Karen Betts thinks maybe Sylvia should have taken some time off.

Hollamby: Oh, no. That’d be playing right into their hands, that would. Nothing that murdering lot’d like more than to get me off their backs for a few weeks. Well, I’m not about to give them that satisfaction.

Satisfaction is a good word for a lack of Hollamby in one’s life. Bliss and joy are two other good words. Nah, who am I kidding? The woman and her neck brace are hilarious.

Sylvia says she wants a full investigation, but Karen says there’s nothing else they can do. The stairs were just plain slippery.

Hollamby: Perhaps you’d be paying a bit more attention if they’d managed to kill me.

Dominic and Di titter in the background. Karen reins everyone in and hands out the assignments for the day. Fenner doesn’t like his assignment; it’s far too lowly for such an experienced officer. But Karen insists, and also insists that Dominic take over as Shell’s personal officer.

Karen: [looking down her nose at Fenner] For obvious reasons.

Nicely done, Boss Betts! Fenner, who always looks like an android ready to go haywire, silently fumes. What must that man’s blood pressure be? Worse than Jack Donaghy‘s, I suspect.

I’ll tell you, Jim: she is. That cow and every other cow, bitch and bird is out to get you. Because you — if we’re taking our epithets from the animal kingdom — are a dog, a rat, a weasel and a pig. And a sloth, an ape and a bear. Wait, not a bear. I’ve just given myself a horrifying mental image.

The servery — Josh has a work order (or something scrawled on a piece of notepaper); he’s supposed to investigate a leak. Crystal says she doesn’t know anything about a leak.

Can I just get a show of hands, here? How many of you are interested in Josh and Crystal at all?

Didn’t think so. But we’re stuck with their romance until Helen shows up again. Josh tries to convince Crystal that he’s a good guy who doesn’t sell drugs. Crystal just wants to talk about God, as usual, even though she acknowledges that she "sinned" when she shoplifted and landed in the clink. But she insists Jesus would shoplift too, because that’s the best way to bring down all the greedy shopkeepers.

Um. What the hell? That sounds crazy, but it’s supposed to be cute somehow — they’re flirting, get it? Don’t you talk about God and shoplifting when you flirt?

The two Julies show up and sense the chemistry between Josh and Crystal. But I think they could sense chemistry between a turnip and a potato. The whole world is their little science experiment.

Interior design — Shell is putting a picture on her wall; it’s some hunky guy who looks sorta like Vanilla Ice. The only interesting thing about this is that she appears to be sticking the picture to the wall with toothpaste. Well, I guess it does have paste in the name.

Shell doesn’t understand why Dom’s being so bossy; he explains that he’s her new personal officer. Shell finds this very exciting.

Shell: If you ever feel like poppin’ in sometime, you know you’re always welcome.